Our View: Raze Brewington Oaks, improve neighborhood

If you drive down Seminary Street south of downtown Rockford, you’ll notice the neighborhood is looking much better than it did a few years ago.

There’s a spiffy roundabout, Jane’s Nobel Village, a 38-unit housing complex for people with disabilities, and some nice older homes in the area.

Yet the skyline is diminished by two towers that look like they were airlifted into the neighborhood by helicopter and placed in the most convenient spot.

Brewington Oaks, the 45-year-old twin public housing towers, seems out of place with everything that’s around it. If the Rockford Housing Authority gets permission from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to tear down the buildings, officials shouldn’t hesitate.

It goes well beyond mere aesthetics. One-third of the 418 apart­ments in the towers are uninhabitable, according to RHA CEO Ron Clewer. We can’t imagine that those that are habitable are in great shape.

Even if they were, Clewer said there’s no market for them. And, of course, there’s no money to fix up the apartments, nearly all of which are one-bedroom units.

Residents would be displaced, but they would be relocated, probably to better accommodations than they have now.

In Rockford and across the country, we’ve seen that concentrations of low-income housing increase the severity of poverty. Chicago has torn down its high-rise public housing and has moved toward mixed-income development.

We often hear claims that those forced out of Chicago’s projects made their way to Rockford. Some did, but Rockford is doing a pretty good job of growing its own poor people.

Mixed-income development is not a panacea. Low-income residents benefit from mixed-income development, but they need more services if they are to break out of their cycle of poverty, according to the 2013 report “Making Mixed-Income Neighborhoods Work for Low-Income Households.”

Still, it’s a much better option than keeping low-income people in concentrated areas.

Furthermore, the cost of keeping the towers would be very prohibitive. It cost $7.5 million to build Brewington Oaks, known then as Campus Towers, when it opened in 1969.

Clewer said RHA has estimated that it would cost $83 million to build Brewington Oaks today. To renovate the towers would cost more than $60 million.

RHA needs to hear from HUD before it can proceed. We hope HUD officials agree that it’s time to move on from this public housing project.